Heating of Heavy Ions in Low-beta Compressible Turbulence

TL;DR

This study uses 3D hybrid simulations to explore how turbulence in low-beta plasma environments, similar to solar flares, efficiently heats heavy ions, revealing a charge-to-mass ratio dependence consistent with solar energetic particle observations.

Contribution

It demonstrates that compressible turbulence in low-beta plasmas can effectively energize heavy ions, with heating inversely related to charge-to-mass ratio, using hybrid simulation methods.

Findings

Heavy ions are heated by nearly perpendicular magnetosonic waves.

Temperature increase is inversely proportional to charge-to-mass ratio.

Turbulence develops from large-amplitude Alfvén waves in low-beta plasma.

Abstract

Enhancement of minor ions such as $^3$He and heavy ions in flare-associated solar energetic particle (SEP) events remains one of the major puzzles in heliophysics. In this work, we use 3D hybrid simulations (kinetic protons and fluid electrons) to investigate particle energization in a turbulent low-beta environment similar to solar flares. It is shown that in this regime the injected large-amplitude Alfv\'en waves develop into compressible and anisotropic turbulence, which efficiently heats thermal ions of different species. We find that temperature increase of heavy ions is inversely proportional to the charge to mass ratio, which is consistent with observations of impulsive SEP events. Further analysis reveals that ions are energized by interacting with nearly perpendicular magnetosonic waves near proton inertial scale.